Rants and Revelations

For two or three weeks I’ve been trying a different pain medication, a NSAID called “relafen”. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but it seemed to me that last weekend when I went flying I was more susceptable to motion sickness than I have been in the past. And yesterday while I was concentrating on something on my screen (ok, it was the live updates from the Giro D’Italia, not work), I suddenly felt like I was going to lose my balance and fall over, which is kind of odd to happen while you’re sitting still. I also seemed to have to remind myself to breathe when I was concentrating - but hey, it was a exciting mountain stage, what can I say? The “hey, I’m losing my balance” feeling just happened again today, even though the Giro stage I was watching work I was doing was pretty unexciting.

One web site listed vertigo as a very rare side effect of relafen. But why now after 3 weeks, and not back when I started?

Oh well, I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow. Maybe he’s got a different medication to try.

If you want to find a picture you saw yesterday, and now the picture has been removed from the web site that you saw it on for copyright reasons, *and* you haven’t exited Firefox in many weeks, *and* you have had a web page open on one page that is constantly showing you different parts of the world in Google Maps in hybrid mode, DO NOT try to find the picture by going to your .mozilla/firefox/*/Cache directory and typing “kuickshow *”.

After my screen filled with several hundred images, mostly Google Map tiles, it started getting really slow. My CPU was pegged, I was swapping heavily, and still images were appearing. The mouse was moving, but nothing was responding to clicks or keyboard presses. I went to another machine, ssh’ed in and did a “killall kuickshow”, but the load average was still over 8. I waited a while for it to drop down to under 1.0, but my display was still unresponsive. Eventually I gave up waiting for it to recover and rebooted.

Of course, my Cache directory is now nearly empty and I’ll never find that picture again.

There is a member of my flying club who owns a Cessna 172 on straight floats, and a half share of a light sport Legend Cub which spends its winters on skis and its summers on straight floats. Yeah, some people have it tough, right? I’ve been begging him for a ride for over a year now, and yesterday he asked on the club mailing list if anybody wanted to be his safety pilot while he tried out the new Garmin 430 in his Cessna. I think I set a record for speedy replies to that mailing list with my “PICK ME! PICK ME!” response.
(more…)

I did this paddle again, from Browncroft Avenue up to the point where Baycreek puts in for the Ellison Park shuttle. (Actually there is a pretty hefty rapid just upstream from that put-in so I doubt I’ll ever get upstream from there.) I’ve done it before, such as when I wrote about it last August in Rants and Revelations » Today’s paddle. It’s over 90 degrees out today, and the prospect of a shady stream seemed like a great idea.

I’m a little concerned because the little parking spot I park at had new “NO TRESPASSING” signs. The parking spot is in front of a small fenced off area that fences off a small brick structure that belongs to the Monroe Water Authority. I can’t imagine that a service truck from the Monroe Water Authority is going to show up at 4:30pm on a Thursday before a long weekend.

The stream was running extremely fast and high today. In previous paddles, there have been places that required me to push along the bottom and even to get out and drag - those places were deep enough to keep paddling, deeply in some places, and shallowly in the place I’ve had to get out and drag before. It was hard work, and I’m actually surprised I made it all the way to the turn-around point. I felt a bit Damiano Cunego today - in today’s stage of the Giro D’Italia, he kept sliding off the back of the leading group, but catching back up to it again and staying within contact to finish a pretty decent 5th. Or maybe I was more like Mickaël Buffaz who yesterday while on a long solo break-away actually climbed off his bike and tearfully begged his coach to let him quit, but recovered and pedalled well for the rest of the race until he was eventually caught near the end. And I would paddle hard and get tired, then stop for a swig of water, and be ready to paddle some more. Of course, I had the knowledge that it was going to get way easier after I reached the turn-around point.

The wild life was pretty sparse today. A lot of ducks, a pair of grey catbirds, a pair of goldfinches bathing in the stream, mourning doves, swallows. I didn’t see any geese on the way up, but by the time I got back there were a couple of pairs near where I put in, including one that had at least 11 fairly large down covered babies. There were a lot of people out walking their dogs, and I nearly had to repel boarders in the main “dog park” part of Ellison Park.

It was a great paddle, but I worked too hard, and my elbows and shoulders are feeling it.

WASHINGTON - Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package Tuesday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months.

HT: This Space For Rent

Ok, they wouldn’t promise to restore habeus corpus or outlaw torture, they’ve done bugger all on restoring New Orleans and the environment, and now they’re screwing us on their promise to hold Bush’s feet to the fire on Iraq. Idiots.

Update: I’m a fucking idiot. Turns out I was calling JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true); when I should have been calling JDialog.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);. All fixed now.

There is a complex interaction between X Windows window managers and Java’s look and feel manager. And it is currently driving me crazy.

Our project choose the “Ice”, aka “icewm” as our window manager. We choose it because

1. It is very lightweight
2. It was relatively easy to strip out all the stuff we don’t want
3. It had translation files so it would automatically display in all the languages we support

On the downside, it also looks very “Windows 3.1″ish, and it’s stupid as hell. The thing that’s currently driving me nuts is that when you use JOptionPane.show.*Dialog to display simple dialogs, Ice insists on putting close and iconify icons on the dialog. Two problems with that

• The icons overlap the title meaning you can’t read the last word in the title.
• If you’re dumb enough to actually iconify the dialog, it’s damn near impossible to find it again, and since it is modal, you’re basically stuck until you can figure out where it went.

So here I am trying to figure out how to make JOptionPane tell Ice to stop doing this. JOptionPane.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true) doesn’t seem to do anything. I discovered in my own dialogs that use my own subclass of JDialog, I can achieve something a little less horrible by calling setUndecorated(true); and getRootPane().setWindowDecorationStyle(JRootPane.FRAME); which gets rid of Ice’s title bar and replaces it with a Java-style title bar that only has a close icon on it.

I downloaded the JDK source code to see if there was anyway I could do something similar in JOptionPane. There are a couple of methods in JOptionPane that look promising, but of course Sun made them private so I can’t override them. I could replace JOptionPane entirely, but that’s probably a gross violation of the license that I downloaded the JDK source under.

I’m hoping that next release I can convince the powers that be to switch to XFCE or something else that looks a little more modern and perhaps will listen to the window manager hints from Java.

Sigh.

I tried this site that attempts to find celebrities who look like you. Most of the ones it found I can find some resemblence, even if it’s only that we both have beards. But who is this Kylie Bax person, and why does this program think I look like her?

Over the last couple of years, the membership of the flying club has reduced by 25%. Maintenance is more expensive as ridiculous lawsuits have forced parts manufacturers and mechanics to spend more on lawyers and insurance, and stupid TSA rules have constrained our flying and our access to planes and airports and added expenses. Fuel costs have spiraled higher and higher. And IFR flying we practically requires an approach capable GPS, which we’ve only added to one of our planes. We’ve tried to reduce costs by selling one of our planes.

Also in that time, it’s become more expensive and harder to insure complex six seater aircraft. When this first became and issue, we had 12 people flying our Lance and 3 people considering moving up, and the insurance company only wanted to write a policy with 8 named pilots on it. We decided that the best way to pare that “Lance list” down a bit was to put a small “Lance Surcharge” for the people who wanted to be on the list. Unfortunately, even with the small surcharge we imposed, the list immediately dropped down to 7 people, and over time it’s dropped to 5.

A couple of weeks ago we re-ran the numbers, and the numbers told us two things:

• The monthly dues needed to be raised
• The small “Lance Surcharge” is not enough to cover all the expenses of the Lance.

In the past, all members of the club have carried the expenses of all the planes, because the planes were club assets. But with only 5 people allowed to fly the plane, it seems that it’s only fair to put more of the onus on the costs of that plane on those people. And the awful truth is that if you put all the onus on those 5 people, one or more might drop off the Lance list, and then the costs will be spread among 4 people, or 3 people. And then there is the issue of the ancient engine - the Lance’s engine is way over TBO, and will probably need replacing within the year, and that’s going to cost around $35,000.

We haven’t actually figured out what to do, but in the mean time we’ve increased the normal monthly dues by $20 and doubled the Lance Surcharge. And we’re putting the Lance up for sale to see if there is any interest.

Then there is the issue of the other flying club. I wrote about them before. Their current “Lance List” has 5 or 6 people on it, and their monthly fees plus “Lance Surcharge” ends up being double what our current fees are. If we make our Lance Surcharge close to what it would take to actually support the aircraft, it would get pretty close to their total fees. And for our money, we’re getting a worse Lance - theirs has an almost new engine, and a Garmin 530W GPS. If I’m going to pay that sort of money, I want to get the best Lance I can get for the money.

Sigh. I wish good load hauling aircraft weren’t rarer than hens teeth. If only we could get a decent Cherokee 6 for a decent price. The 6 has the roominess and load hauling ability of a Lance, but without retractable gear. That means you lose some speed, but you gain insurability, and lower maintenance costs. Even better, because it would be insurable without a named pilot policy, we wouldn’t need a separate list and surcharge for it. But Piper didn’t make very many of them, and the ones that are out there are selling for $40,000 more than an equivalent Lance for those very reasons.

Pilot dead

A Snowbirds pilot has died. Their season only just started - I saw a story about their sign-off show only a week or so ago. Oh man, I know it’s terrible either way, but I selfishly hope it’s not one of the ones who signed my laptop.

I went up the left branch of the creek after the weir, up to Old Browncroft Blvd. 4.4 miles round trip. The air was a little below 70 degrees and the water still a bit cold, and I wore my wet suit with no shirt underneath, and my PFD. The PFD isn’t very good, and it rides up above my fat stomach and ends up rubbing against my jaw as I paddle. The wet suit rubs a bit under the arms but I’m pretty sure it would be fine if I wore a t-shirt.

I tried hard to paddle with good technique, but I don’t think I did a very good job. My elbows are quite sore now. When I got to the turn around point, my left shoulder and right fore-arm were sore and I thought I’d have to take it easy on the way home, but with the current behind me I actually ended up doing some good hard paddling and I wasn’t sore when I got home.

If you look at the Google Maps Pedometer map on the link above, you’ll see that I went into a large area of open water. I think of it as “the lake”, but it’s not really one. The shores of “the lake” provide a lot of mud flats, and on the flats there were dozens of sandpipers. There seemed to be two types of them, some really tiny ones about the size of a goldfinch, and some about half way between that and a killdeer, but I wouldn’t swear to that. I also saw some highly aggressive red wing blackbirds - some attacking each other, and some chasing off some small falcon-form birds like a Merlin or a Kestrel. I guess the females are coming soon. This area also attracts vultures, which is not very encouraging when you’re struggling, and they were out today.

Speaking of birds, what is it about Great Blue Herons that make them so stupid? They see a boat coming upstream, so they “escape” by flying up further upstream, only to have to fly off again 5 minutes later as you get closer. Why is it so hard for them to figure out that they just have to fly around behind you? Bird brains!

On the trip back, I discovered a “gaggle” of young girls in kayaks harassing a swan. There were about 8 or 9 of them, and they had the swan surrounded and were sort of chasing it around. The poor thing had its wings up in a threat display, but there were too many for it to attack or get away from. I didn’t see an obvious leader, so I yelled at them to leave the damn swan alone before they killed it, and paddled on home. When I got to Bay Creek, I asked about this group and the guy working there said that they were supposed to be with an instructor, and he’d speak to them when they got back.

I didn’t want to book any trips until I got IFR current because you never know when you’re going to need to fly in actual. So it was with some dismay a few weeks ago when I realized that one member of my flying club has managed to book the Lance on for the weekends of May 5, 11, 19, 26, June 9, and then solidly from June 17-29, and then somebody else has it solidly from June 30-July 8, and somebody else has it solidly from July 8 to July 22. Unfortunately Vicki has other committments on June 3rd, meaning that if I wanted to plan a weekend trip to Ottawa with a couple of friends, I’d have to wait until July 27th, or figure out how to squeeze four people plus baggage into the Dakota.

So I’ve been kicking myself for leaving it this late to book, and I’ve been a little annoyed at Jim for booking all those weekends. But last night Lenny mentioned that when he booked the Dakota to go to Colorado a few years ago, he was told that he’d have to get approval from the Board of Directors because he’s taking the plane away for more than 10 days. Well, those three block bookings that go straight from June 17th to July 22nd are all more than 10 days. So I’m not proud of myself, but I sent a letter to the Officers and Board of Directors asking if that policy is still in effect.

I finally finished up my iPC this evening. The winds were favouring runways 4, 7 and 10, which meant that the only RNAV approach that had a LNAV/VNAV option was RNAV (GPS) 04. That’s unfortunate, because runway 4 is the one favoured by the big jets - when the wind is coming the other direction, the approach with LNAV/VNAV is RNAV (GPS) 28, and runway 28 is used by commuter jets and turboprops, which means that my 120 knot approach isn’t too far off their approach speed. And sure enough, on the first attempt at an LNAV/VNAV approach they gave me a 90 degree turn onto the approach just outside the FAF. I did a passable but not great job. I followed the needles down well below the Decision Altitude (1200 feet).

The second time was even worse. Just as I was expecting another 90 degree turn half a mile from the FAF, I heard squelch break twice and an inaudible whisper, and then a “23Y how do you hear me”. That was followed by two vectors through the course that took me past the FAF, and an intercept vector that wouldn’t actually intercept. I “fudged’ the assigned vector to one that would intercept. Starting off having to start my descent before I’d gotten squared away on the approach path meant I never really got settled down. Even using the “TRK” reading on the GPS to try to get the right heading didn’t really make it easy. I kept it within acceptable limits down to the DA. But there’s no way in hell I would have accepted such a lousy set of vectors in IMC.

On both approaches, I’d been chasing the needles in both directions, and didn’t get stabilized, although at the end of it the runway was pretty much straight in front of me.

For the last approach, I asked for the ILS 04. This time, we were obviously getting vectored further away - I don’t know if the controllers know how to vector ILSes better, or if things were slowing down so they could have us on the approach longer. Although he tried to vector a Citation in in front of us, but when it didn’t work out he vectored them through the approach course and a 270 degree turn back onto the course behind us. On the downwind, Lenny reminded me to get my pre-landing checklist done, pick a speed and altitude, get well stabilized, and try to maintain both speed and altitude. I picked 110 knots and 2000 feet. And it worked - I got a better turn onto the approach course about a mile outside the FAF, I kept my speed and pulled back the throttle to get a 550 foot per minute descent at the speed I’d trimmed for. A quick check to make sure my TRK was 043 degrees, and then followed the needles down. Everything was pretty amazingly stabilized in both axes until about 1200 feet, when both needles started to wander. Personally I thought there was a bit of a windshift, but Lenny says he thinks I just got fixated on something after switching to the tower frequency.

Afterwards, we did a bit of ground review. Discussed some interesting things, like why on the RNAV (GPS) 04 approach, the DA for the LNAV/VNAV approach is the same as the MDA for the LNAV approach, but the required visibility on the LNAV/VNAV one is way higher (1.25 miles instead of 2400 feet)? (Answer: because you reach the LNAV/VNAV DA 1.9 miles from the runway end, but the LNAV MAP is right at the runway end.) Couldn’t figure out why the DA is so high, however. The ILS DA is 765 feet, compared to the LNAV/VNAV DA is 1200 feet. Discussed the other IFR trivia, looked at some stuff on the charts like the new T-airways (there’s one up near Ottawa on the L24/L25 chart).

Anyway, it’s nice to be current again.

I suddenly discovered I couldn’t reach my colo box. It wasn’t answering on any of the ports it’s supposed to be. But I didn’t get any indication that anything was going wrong before hand, and I couldn’t ping the IP one before mine, so I was was hoping it was a problem at Time Warner’s data center and not with my box. I called my colo provider, but didn’t get an answer. Ah good, I thought, ever the optimist, that means they’re working on the problem.

But the minutes turned into hours, and I still couldn’t get through to my box, nor was anybody answering the phone. But after nearly three hours of downtime, mail started flowing again! I could reach my web sites! And the IP one before mine became pingable. And it appears that they didn’t have to reboot my box to do it. My 65 day uptime survives. Yah!

Once again into the breach, once again risking the severe depression that follows every previous attempt to do something about my pain. So it goes. The pain has gotten so severe that I really have no other choice. Just hope I can survive the let down when it doesn’t work.

So I have a new prescription for a new NSAID, and orders for x-rays of my knees and elbows, and a bunch of blood tests. And a promise that if nothing turns out, I’ll get a referral to a pain clinic.

Last year’s first paddle of the season was March 31st. This year’s was May 10th. Ok, granted the spring was much later this year, but I still see it as a sign of how disorganized I’ve been this spring.

The air temp was in the high 70s, and the water temp was cool to the touch. I just traded in the wet suit that I got for Christmas for one that goes around my huge gut, and so I was terribly over dressed in a wet suit and polar weave long sleeved shirt. I brought along my iPod shuffle but as I parked the car I could hear the sounds coming from the marsh and decided to leave it behind.

The water was smooth as glass, and I didn’t feel any current at all. I was paddling without a skeg - I always heard that using a skeg on smooth water was a crutch, but I wanted a boat that took some growing into and it took me a while to get to this point, so I was happy that I seem to have outgrown it.

The marsh is in full spring mode. The reeds have all been mashed down over the winter, leaving just a few cat tails sticking up. A lot of those cat tails had male red wing blackbirds singing out their territory and keeping a wary eye on the other males. I don’t think the females have arrived yet.

Down in the mashed down reeds, lots of geese were nesting, although I didn’t see any goslings. At one point there is a log in the middle of the stream, and on it there were two goose eggs on top of the log, and five or six other eggs down in a crook in the log. No goose anywhere near by, so I wonder if the goose got frustrated with its eggs rolling away and abandoned the nest.

I only saw one swan, not surprisingly in exact same place I’ve seen swans before, and many pairs of ducks. Up near the wier, I came across a Great Blue Heron. By keeping my paddles down so that they wouldn’t be sillohuetted against the sky (I normally have a high paddling style) I was able to ghost by without him flying away.

Other bird life included an American Goldfinch and another yellow bird about the same size, but without any black. I’m not sure, but I think I saw some red in it as well. I also could see a float plane doing take offs and landings on the bay - at first I thought it was Mike’s plane, but it appeared to have a huge tail that marked it as a Maule.

Near the weir, I also saw a small mustiled, somewhere in size between a chipmunk and a red squirrel but longer, swimming across the stream. As it climbed out on the bank, I could see it was black or very dark brown. I’m guessing it was a mink. It was definitely thinner than a muskrat.

As I reached the turn around point, I started reflecting on what a wonderful little oasis this is. The marsh is surrounded on both banks by lovely woods, what I still think of as “orienteering woods” - the sort of trees that you could really see yourself running through at good speed. Yeah, behind the sounds of the red wing blackbirds and other wildlife, you could hear traffic noise and the occassional siren, but you could shut that out and make believe you were in a real wilderness. It’s no Algonquin park, but it’s beautiful and it’s here.

According to Google Maps Pedometer, I paddled 3 miles today. Not a bad start to the season.